r two's delay of Kincaid's Battery need
work no evil to the Cause nor any such rending to any heart as must be
hers if Kincaid's Battery should go to-night? Softly the stair clock
boomed three. She lifted her head and for a full three minutes harkened
toward the camp. Still no sound there, thank God! She turned upon her
pillow.

But--what! Could that be the clock again, and had she slumbered? "Three,
four," murmured the clock. She slipped from her bed and stole to the
window. Just above the low, dim parapet, without a twinkle, the morning
star shone large, its slender, mile-long radiance shimmering on the
gliding river. In all the scented landscape was yet no first stir of
dawn, but only clearness enough to show the outlines of the camp ground.
She stared. She stared again! Not a tent was standing. Oh! and oh!
through what bugling, what rolling of drums and noise of hoofs, wheels,
and riders had she lain oblivious at last? None, really; by order of the
commanding general--on a private suggestion of Irby's, please notice,
that the practice would be of value--camp had been struck in silence.
But to her the sole fact in reach was that all its life was gone!

Sole fact? Gone? All gone? What was this long band of darkness where the
gray road should be, in the dull shadow of the levee? Oh, God of mercy,
it was the column! the whole of Kincaid's Battery, in the saddle and on
the chests, waiting for the word to march! Ah, thou ladies' man! Thus to
steal away! Is this your profound--abiding--consuming love? The whisper
was only in her heart, but it had almost reached her lips, when she
caught her breath, her whole form in a tremor. She clenched the
window-frame, she clasped her heaving side.

For as though in reply, approaching from behind the house as if already
the producer had nearly made its circuit, there sounded close under the
balustrade the walking of a horse. God grant no other ear had noted it!
Now just beneath the window it ceased. Hilary Kincaid! She could not
see, but as sure as sight she knew. Her warrior, her knight, her emperor
now at last, utterly and forever, she his, he hers, yet the last moment
of opportunity flitting by and she here helpless to speak the one word
of surrender and possession. Again she shrank and trembled. Something
had dropped in at the window. There it lay, small and dark, on the
floor. She snatched it up. Its scant tie of ribbon, her touch told her,
was a bit of the one she had that othe